Replacing Norcold

[DipHop]

Has anyone replaced the Norcold 1200LRIM with a Samsung residential refrigerator in a 2007 Diplomat 40SFT? My concerns are: 1. Will the Norcold and Samsung fit through the entry door with the seats removed and 2. is there enough clearance between the refrigerator doors and the hall door with the slide pulled in?

[jlfbatonrg]

DipHop,

We looked at the same problem with our Expedition just this summer. Here's what we learned and why we didn't replace the Norcold 1200.

The good news

1. The old Norcold will go through our entry door if the refrigerastor doors are
removed and the door retainer is removed which allows the entry door to open a
bit further. Our coach door opening is ~25 inches in that configuration.

2. Any counter depth residential refrigerator will fit through our door if the refrigerator
doors are removed. We didn't want to remove a side window from the coach to get
the new box in, which meant we had to have <25 inch depth.

3. We didn't feel the refrigerator doors would be a problem in our coach with the front
slides in going down the road.

Now the concerns we had.

1. We didn't find a refrigerator that had the correct width and height to fit in place
of the Norcold. In our coach, as we found out when we removed the Norcold,
there was no extra width inside the coach to expand the opening. The existing
refrigerator compartment butts up to a spice compartment and the plumbing
compartment on the right side, and the Micro/convection oven, stove, and
dishwasher on the left. The narrowest residential refrigerator we found that had
the correct height was 35.5 inches wide. Our opening is ~34 inches.

2. In our coach, there is only about 2 inches height above the Norcold. When we
found refrigerators the fit the width, they were several inches too high to fit on
our slide.

3. The closest refrigerator we found still weighed ~400 lb., we weren't sure we could
handle it.

Since we decided we didn't want to do a major rebuild of our coach, we went with the Amish replacement cooling unit that fit our Norcold. Replacing the unit was relatively simple, with the most difficult problem sliding the Norcold out into the coach, and then putting it back in place. My wife and I did the entire job in about 6 hours. Since we're approaching 70 years of age, it would probably take less time for younger people.

Comparing the performance of the original Norcold absorption unit to the Amish unit has provided some interesting data. We ran the Norcold unit on temp setting 7, which manitained the refrigerator at about 35 degrees, and the freezer at about 10 degrees. We run the Amish unit on temp setting 3 which maintains the refrigerator at about 32 degrees, and the freezer at about -05 degrees. I'm not saying these temps are absolutely accurate, but they are observed using the same thermometer. What is true is the ice cream stays hard with the Amish unti. It was soft with the Norcold unit. Hopes this helps you with your decision.

[DennisZ]

Jack
I don't think you will have any problems, if you look at the specs for the RF-197, I think that with minor modifications it should fit in fine, as said, the old unit will go out the door if the chair is removed and the doors are removed from the frig. I installed a RF-217, it would not go thru the door, so we just removed the old unit and installed the new by removing the drivers side window.
The only thing that would make the install more difficult will be if your furnace is located below the frig, if not, it;s pretty straight forward.

Three rules to follow:
1. Measure everything
2. Repeat step 1 to make sure.
3. Take your time and plan it out.

So far, replacing mine has been a good decision.

Dennis

[smlranger]

If this helps, we are replacing our 1200LRIM with a Frigidaire upper freezer stainless fridge in our Journey. The Norcold (with doors removed) will go out the coach door with front passenger seat, grab handles and screen door removed. The Frigidaire goes in the coach door with the fridge doors removed.

The Frigidaire is a bit narrower than the opening so some trim on the sides will be needed. However, some rework of the opening is required to gain about 1 1/2 inches of height. Depth is fine with only the fridge doors outside the opening, but that is needed anyway so the doors can clear the opening and open fully.

The Frigidaire was $629 on sale at Lowes, free delivery and ice maker. It is 18.2 cu. ft. We considered the Samsung but counter depth units are so much more expensive and this 18.2 cu ft Frigidaire is still 8 - 10 more cu ft of space than the Norcold. I don't have the exact model # in hand right now but it was something like LGHT18.... It is one of their Gallery models, comes in stainless and has doors that are hinged on the right. Lowes had several variants of the same fridge...white, black and a stainless-look model. All were energy star rated.

We don't boondock except for an overnight stay in a Walmart lot. We plan to run the fridge while underway on our inverter or genset, depending on other issues (AC needs, etc.). During the evening at a Walmart or other similar location with no shore power, we will use the inverter and also have auto gen start which starts the genset whenever the house batteries drop below a set voltage level.

[deSanford]

The Norcold is very energy efficient. When my unit fails I will go with the Amish unit. That said I believe if I was full timing and staying in RV Parks then a residential frig might be the ticket. deSanford

[moisheh]

Actually the Samsung or any residential fridge is much more energy efficient than a Nevercold. Hard ice cream, cold beer and no fire risk. I have yet to see a post on any forum from anyone who was sorry they switched. There are a number of good write ups on this Monaco forum.

[Muddypaws]

I'm not a big fan of residential refers. They're noisy, heavy, expensive, and you either have to be plugged in most of the time or carry and extra 200 pounds of batteries, plus pure sine wave inverters, solar panels or run a generator too often for my tastes. I would always be worried abut having enough electricity.

I have a residential LG (I.e.Samsung) in my stick house and it's not all that impressive for the > 2K it cost me.

There are other answers. My 1200LRIM is steady at 34F in the refer and -5 in both freezers, on setting #2. I've had to turn it way down to keep it from being too cold! Total cash outlay so far has been $23 for a 'snip-the-tip' thermostat repair kit and 5 minutes to install it. I figured it was worth trying. DW stocked it with food today and the temprature is holding better than ever before so I'm feeling even more optimistic about it. But for $23 it was well worth a try.

I am not defending Dometic! At the first sign of a leak or the red light of death I'll be slapping an an Amish coil as fast as I can get one.

[wolf1281]

You can go to the Samsung web site. Under the fridge your interested you can get all the specs you need. They give the measurement with the doors open etc.
If you do a search under replaceing the Norcold, about a month or so ago a member posted pics of the whole process.
Hope this helps?

[Ocletti]

I just replaced my Norcold 1200. I had just gotten another recall notice on it, when we started smelling ammonia. So, I did some research. We've got a Allegro Bus. We went to everywhere looking for an electric fridge that would fit. At sears, we found a nice side by side Whirlpool that fit perfect. Had to strip it down and come in the side window. Made some small modifications on the fridge opening, and it slid right in. Looks real nice, with 21.7 CF. Cost around $760.00. No more recalls, and don't have to worry about fires.

[conmoto]

The Samsung we installed is lighter, less expensive, as quiet as the Norcold and does not require pure sine wave. I can run it off the inverter, shore power or gen. It has been a great mod! Did I mention it keeps everything very cold? It would not be good if we did alot of dry camping but for us it works out well.

[jlfbatonrg]

One question Diphop,

Is your Norcold on a slide like ours? I'm not aware of anyone doing it on a slide. I would say be sure of your measurements before you make the decision. We would have preferred a residential, but could not fit one in because we couldn't easily modify the slide to fit the refrigerator. Good luck in whatever you do, and please let us know what you decide.

[az bound]

We have a 17 cu. ft. residential and boondock 90% of the time as fulltimers. 490 ah battery bank and a modified sein vave inverter. The refer weighs 50lbs. less than the absorbtion we took out.
The only ones that say they dont like them are those that have no experience with one and dont have anything to add except opinion. They only serve to confuse the issue for those wanting information.
Removing a window to install a refer and reinstalling it takes about an hour, no big thing.

[Papa_Jim]

A question of curiosity to anyone using a residential fridge. When you settle down for the night, if the fridge is being powered through the inverter, does the fridge actually draw much current from the batteries overnight?

[DennisZ]

Like me, lots of folks have done the replacement in the slideout. As far as the weight, my Samsung is almost 100 lbs lighter, and it's cold and ready to go in less than 3 hours.

Dennis